Students step up for physically challenged children

Rice University freshmen’s horizontal ladder helps kids learn to navigate obstacles

Five Rice University freshmen stepped up to a challenge – literally — when they designed a device for physical therapists who help children with balance issues.

The StepUp Floor Ladder is a simple frame with movable rungs that tests children’s ability to balance as they traverse obstacles.

But the process of creating the device was not simple at all. The young women who accepted the task posed by the Pediatric Therapy Center (PTC) in Houston spent every spare moment of their first year at Rice strategizing, designing and constructing the prototype.

Brooke Stevens, a patient at the Pediatric Therapy Center in Houston, tests her balance with the StepUp Floor Ladder invented by Rice University freshmen to help children navigate obstacles as they walk. The students created the device in an engineering design course that puts them to work on practical problems as soon as their college careers begin. Photo by Jeff Fitlow

“In our first semester, we discovered our project had so many different components we didn’t expect,” said Fanny Huang, a bioengineering student. “Toward the end, we filtered out many of the ideas, but the design was constantly changing.”

The ladder was the product of a course offered by Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering that challenges students to immerse themselves in the design process from day one of their college careers.

The multidisciplinary team known as FEMGI-120 (a play on the course catalog designation, Engi-120) came together with a goal: to make something that would serve their clients for years to come. Huang’s teammates are Lauren Wood (a computer science major), Nicole Moes (mechanical engineering), Denise Yee (architecture) and Lauren McCarley (civil and environmental engineering). Their advisers are Matthew Wettergreen, a lecturer at Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen, and Ann Saterbak, a professor in the practice of bioengineering education.

Wood said the students finished a wooden version of their ladder in the fall, “but it didn’t quite meet all of our expectations, and we didn’t feel comfortable handing that to the therapy center. We wanted to make something that was a lot better. And I think we’re all really proud of what we’ve made now.”

The 17-pound final version is a frame of strong plastic tubes covered in outdoor tablecloth material and padding. The cover “serves as a visual barrier for the children so they know where they can and can’t step, and don’t just see the PVC frame,” she said.

The ladder replaces a slotted wooden frame the center had been using for years. “The old frame is not adjustable horizontally or vertically, and it’s started to fall apart,” Moes said. The old device was heavy and when it was lifted from the side, all the slats would fall out, she said.

Members of the FEMGI-120 team, clockwise from front left: Denise Yee, Nicole Moes, Lauren McCarley, Lauren Wood and Fanny Huang. Photo by Jeff Fitlow

“What was most important to the therapists was that the ladder remain stable during a session,” McCarley said. The students designed vertical foam dividers that stay in place with PVC clamps until the therapist decides to move them. The therapist can also change heights with pieces that slide into the divider frames.

“They wanted to be able to set it up with the same spacing their current ladder has, but we also made it vertically adjustable up to the average height of a stair, 7 inches,” Wood said.

The students also designed and delivered colored and textured mats that slip under the frame to give patients a strong visual reference as they navigate the course.

“They’re a diligent, hard-working group of students, and they’ve done a really nice job of communicating with us and problem-solving things we found along the way,” said Marla Lafferty, a staff physical therapist at PTC. Lafferty said the ladder will help therapists who work with patients with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and other motor-coordination issues.

The payoff came when the team delivered their finished product to the West Houston facility in late April.

The students were delighted to watch as PTC patient Brooke Stevens, 3, navigated the low rungs, then the higher ones, and then the highest ones, with the teammates and Brooke’s therapist modifying the ladder on the fly.

“This just makes it all worth it,” Moes said.

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Watch a video about the StepUp Floor Ladder at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5yAlY_8e3U

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews

Related Materials:

FEMGI-120 team page: http://oedk.rice.edu/Content/Members/MemberPublicProfile.aspx?pageId=1063096&memberId=10909183

Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen: http://oedk.rice.edu

George R. Brown School of Engineering: http://engr.rice.edu

Images for download:

https://news2.rice.edu/files/2014/04/0505_FEMGI-1-web.jpg

Brooke Stevens, a patient at the Pediatric Therapy Center in Houston, tests her balance with the StepUp Floor Ladder invented by Rice University freshmen to help children navigate obstacles as they walk. The students created the device in an engineering design course that puts them to work on practical problems as soon as their college careers begin. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

https://news2.rice.edu/files/2014/04/0505_FEMGI-2-web.jpg

Rice University students watch as pediatric therapist Jane Knowlton helps Brooke Stevens progress through the StepUp Floor Ladder. The Rice freshmen created the device to help patients with balance issues navigate uneven terrain. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

https://news2.rice.edu/files/2014/04/0505_FEMGI-3-web.jpg

Rice University freshmen created the StepUp Floor Ladder to help patients at Houston’s Pediatric Therapy Center learn to balance over uneven terrain. Clockwise from front left:  Denise Yee, Nicole Moes, Lauren McCarley, Lauren Wood and Fanny Huang. Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

https://news2.rice.edu/files/2014/04/0505_FEMGI-4-web.jpg

Rice University freshmen created the StepUp Floor Ladder to help patients with motor-coordination issues learn to balance as they traverse uneven terrain. From left: Denise Yee, Nicole Moes, Lauren McCarley, Lauren Wood and Fanny Huang. Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

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